Woke up Fri. morning to a slightly cooler dawn, it was about 18F so I took my time getting ready to ride. Made a big breakfast of spuds, onions, meat and eggs on the wood cookstove and by 8am was on the trail. Followed my Wen. ride (Upriver Ride) for the first 2 miles and then stayed on the main trail (know locally as the 1380 road) which was the only way into the creek for many years until the new road was built. This is a narrow, rocky, muddy, rough jeep trail that runs about 4 miles out to the highway. I rode it till just before the highway and then took a side trail over to the head of Sonny's trail. From here I went straight across the highway to a little unofficial camping spot overlooking the river. In the back of this is a dropoff to a jeep trail that goes out to the river on the downriver side of the bridge. Here you can get right on the overflow-riverbottom or stay to the east/right and ride a jeep trail that run almost to the Tanana River about 1 1/2 miles from the highway. Halfway to the river I checked out a road-trail that heads east and runs along the north edge of a series of big fields and ends at a old buddies spread about 2 miles away. The trail along the fields looked dry enough to ride so I rode back to the river knowing how I'd get back to the cabin.

Heading out to the overflow ice I turned right and rode to the Tanana river where there was an interesting feature. The riverbottom that the Johnson forms is probably a mile + wide where it meets the Tanana although the river itself is only 30-40 ft. across and was running all the way over at the western edge. Except for the open river almost the entire riverbottom was level overflow ice that ended in a 1-2 ft. wide jagged crack where it met the subsided ice on the Tanana. This crack ran for at least a mile before it met the open river.

I rode along it occasionally jumping over from one side to the other. The ice had a nice granular surface and made for great traction. It was really enjoyable riding along as I never been this far west on the riverbottom because the river usually runs more to the eastern side of the area. The ice on the Tanana sloped to the middle from both sides and was not open. I feel pretty secure riding around the Johnson, although you could get hurt falling in it is shallow and although you'd be cold and wet you could get out. The Tanana is a different story. If you fell in it, well that's all folks and I don't even really trust the ice as it's a river that's known for bad ice. I think this is because of springs that feed it. Many years ago I tried traveling on it but there was so much overflow water under the snow that I gave up after less than a quarter mile. Coming to the confluence of the two rivers there was a spot of open water on the Tanana that came up from the ice under pressure to form a small moving hump. The water here was murky from the Tanana but got clear within a 100 ft. up the Johnson.

I followed the Johnson back upriver for a mile to the first ice bridge and then crossed over and headed back downriver. Here there was a narrow shelf of ice hanging on a bushy slope that I almost cleaned the first time but the bushes sticking out wanted to push me into the river. Coming back I cleaned it.

Now I was in a area I'd never been before and worked my way over areas of overflow ice next to the river.

As I got closer to the Tanana I rode father west over gravel and sand bars free of ice but the going was pretty rough so I headed back towards the ice. Ended up at the Tanana a little downstream from the confluence of the Johnson, the river was open again with some big chunks of shelf ice broken off and lying in the river.

Took a short break here and enjoyed the views. Now time to head back. Pretty much kept to the same route except after cleaning the shelf and recrossing the ice bridge I kept going back towards the bridge exploring the overflow. Ok finally had my fill of iceriding and headed back toward the trail into the fields. Now I got to ride on dirt again. The fields were a little wet but almost all rideable except for a couple of spots where I had to bushwhack around depressions filled with meltwater. There were a few spots of shallow water with thin crusts of ice on top were I got to play icebreaker when riding thru.

The fields had their own set of challenging riding conditions with one spot of deep snow partially melted which was like riding thru a snowcone. Couple of deep mud holes but for the most part rode all the way to my old friend Dennis's spread. He's got 115 acres and I spent over a year here in the mid 80's running a small sawmill and helping to build a big log garage and a log sauna. He was gone but I met his 'guard dog' a big rotwiller that didn't even bark at me when I came up. After a quick visit with Dog (I found out later that's his name) I rode down to the front of the property and a couple of old cabins at the highway. Here Dennis had a couch sitting next to his driveway so pumped up my tires for the ride back via a mile of highway and then the gravel road to the last section of trail to the cabin.

Got back at about 12:30 pm under warm and sunny skies. Time for another beer, sunbathing and another sauna. This ride covered about 20+ miles and except for the side trip over the river is a standard ride when I'm in the area.